What is it about The Silmarillion that inspires so many artists?

[Maedhros_Nelyafinwë]

Seeing artwork of the Silmarillion was actually what made me interested in reading it. And despite the book having a relatively small fandom relative to, say, LotR, there are thousands of artworks of it out there. I continue to see more Silm art every single day on Pinterest; there's no shortage of it! It has led me to believe that there's something about the Silmarillion that attracts and inspires artists. (I would be one of those people, having spent the past 9 months working on a drawing, which I really do hope to finish sometime soon!) But it's amazing to me that a relatively small fandom can be so prolific in creating so much art about this story.

Why do you think this is? I have a few ideas:

First of all, the imagery of the Silmarillion is imaginative and beautiful, from the Two Trees illuminating the ancient world, to Eärendil sailing through the sky with a brilliantly glowing Silmaril. And the vast majority of the characters, being Elves, Maiar, Valar, and men who look like Elves, are described as beautiful too, so it's enticing to an artist to want to flesh out these visual concepts.

Second of all, I think the Silmarillion lacks just the right amount of detail that artists are itching to figure out what exactly these people and places look like. Tolkien gives us a rich framework of concepts to get our imaginations flowing and then we can flesh out some of the details. I think this is also related to the fact that there currently is no live-action adaptation of the Silm, so there's a lot of artistic freedom in that.

Looking forward to seeing what you all think!

(I hope this is the right forum for this. I figured since this is supposed to be more of a discussion about the Silmarillion, specifically, and not so much about posting artwork, it should go here.)

 

[Tyelkormo the Fair]

I agree with you, there's just much more opportunities for artists to make their works unique in Silmarillion because of the amount of as you said, beautiful characters and events that I too prefer to draw sth based on Silmarillion when I decide to do an original work...

 

[Olorgando]

Valinor is JRRT's Asgard or Mount Olympus - or whatever was the equivalent in Persian, Indian or whatever polytheistic mythologies. Yes, there's Eru Iluvatar in the background, but JRRT at last hints at all of this Fourth Age and later stuff being derived from rumors that diffused eastwards from Beleriand.
The "gods" are still present, taking an occasional active role in the world. Which is that of Northrop Frye's second-highest category "Romance", with a lot of the top level "Mythology" thrown in. Why Thor and Hercules, to name just two, are running all over the place in countless films and TV shows.

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

I think this is also related to the fact that there currently is no live-action adaptation of the Silm, so there's a lot of artistic freedom in that.

Yes, I imagine artists feel less contstrained without the pressure of reproducing the actors from LOTR or Hobbit.

Northrop Frye's second-highest category "Romance", with a lot of the top level "Mythology" thrown in.

It should be pointed out that Frye was at pains to make clear his "Five Modes" were purely diagrammatic, and not intended as arguing for any hierarchy of values.

 

[Olorgando]

It should be pointed out that Frye was at pains to make clear his "Five Modes" were purely diagrammatic, and not intended as arguing for any hierarchy of values.

Perhaps not (modern) values, but Frye definitely differentiates the modes in terms of the "superiority" (or not) of the heroes to their environments, other characters, ...

 

[Squint-eyed Southerner]

Oh, that's true, but refers only to the hero's power of action, not to any kind of moral superiority. After all, the Greek gods used their "superior" powers to get up to all kinds of naughtiness -- especially Zeus. 😄

 

[Kon]

I think the main reason artists are inspired to is overall the same reason for all his other works, the love of the fans due to Tolkien's craftmanship of his world, but I think there are qualities that make the art of the Silmarillion unique and possibly what makes it fascinating to its readers.

You were pretty spot on with the fact of there is no widespread interpretation of the world of The Silmarillion, the Peter Jackson films for all intent and purposes have shaped the overall perception of Lord of the Rings in the modern day far over the boundaries of the novels, for example, all the misconceptions I'm sure all of you are well aware of the average fan of the films (of course, I enjoy them immensely but still). Without there being an overall accepted interpretation like that of the films, artists in my opinion have more creative freedom of their ideas of a particular character, story, or event which has no concrete image in their mind to shape their imagination.

Another key aspect I just briefly hinted at is I believe the overall structure of the Silmarillion. With it being a large story covering the entire mythology, there are many stories of different characters, settings, tones, and unique moments that fans have fallen in love with and formed their own views on it. I think with these different tones, the art has a lot more creative freedom than that of many other Tolkien's works, and thus the inspiration for those that have read the novel there is more likely something to stick. For example, many artists particularly fall in love with the epic moments, Fingolfin's duel against Morgoth, Turin's ending with Glaurung, Beren and Luthien's many different moments, while I notice a lot of the modern artists instead fall in love with a lot of the characters themselves; with the art of different fair appearances and the curiosity of the fans on the relationships of the characters they have grown to enjoy.

 

[Ent]

I might add a little something, though it's been alluded to.
Tolkien had an incredible way of 'picturing' with words.

For LoTR, he "pictured" what he intended to be 'historical fantasy'... more 'concrete' in a way, more solid, more 'touchable' as it were. It simply does not have quite the same feeling of 'mystique,' or whatever term one might want to apply.

SIL, however, he INTENTIONALLY wrote to be more "mythological fantasy" - broader in scope, outsized in many ways, open to more interpretation, exploration, embellishment in terms of sizes, beauties, enchantments, events, creatures, etc.

Many artists, being artists, are naturally drawn to 'artistic' expression...including via 'words'. They could well be 'pulled' by the added mythology, distance of time, etc. presented in SIL, but absent from LoTR.

In addition, we can see the whole FOCUS of the two books being different. SIL is much more focused on people and their involvement with events. LoTR is much more focused on events, and people's involvements in them. (thus, LoTR 'feeling' more concrete.)

it would be interesting seeing some numbers... artwork based from LoTR, and artwork based from SIL.
Certainly for the reading population, the factor is 100 to 1 (according to most quick numbers.)
For Artwork, I've been unable to find a ratio as of yet...

 

[Olorgando]

Oh, that's true, but refers only to the hero's power of action, not to any kind of moral superiority. After all, the Greek gods used their "superior" powers to get up to all kinds of naughtiness -- especially Zeus. 😄

Zeus and Hera nowadays would be a sitcom. 🤓 That's level 5 "irony" on Frye's scale, right?

 

[d4rk3lf]

Silmarillion is my favorite book of all time, and I am still puzzled and fascinated how Tolkien managed to put tens of thousands of years in it (or even more), of the complete history of M.E.
Yet, he manages to follow individual fates, and individual deeds (for example: famous Fingolfin VS Morhoth battle), and if I didn't read Silmarillion, and someone told me that one book had it all, I wouldn't believe it.

No wonder artist are drawn to it, because there are so much cool epic material, and everyone has it's own vision of it.
I am just sorry that I still haven't found music interpretation of the Ainulindale that I like so far (if you have any recommendation, please post it).

 

[Maedhros_Nelyafinwë]

it would be interesting seeing some numbers... artwork based from LoTR, and artwork based from SIL.
Certainly for the reading population, the factor is 100 to 1 (according to most quick numbers.)
For Artwork, I've been unable to find a ratio as of yet...

I wish we could collect this data! I'm sure it would basically be impossible to quantitatively measure the number of LotR artworks to Silm artworks out there. But overall, I'd guess Silm artwork numbers in the tens of thousands, at least- I have about 1600 saved on Pinterest, with most being Silm related and a few LotR things sprinkled in here and there. And this is with me filtering out the art that I personally don't like or find objectionable. It also has a heavy emphasis on Finwë's descendants and especially the Fëanorians, so not as heavy an emphasis on the many other characters. So my Pinterest algorithm is tailoring the results to show me lots of Fëanorians and Nolofinwians, because that's what I engage with most, so there's probably a ton of other stuff I'm not seeing.

And I don't engage nearly as much with LotR artwork, so I don't see that much of it on my Pinterest feed. And obviously there is a ton out there but is it really a hundred times more than the amount of Silm art, as is the proportion of reader fanbases? I would certainly guess that the Silm fandom produces more art in proportion to their size than the LotR fandom does.

 

[Ent]

I would certainly guess that the Silm fandom produces more art in proportion to their size than the LotR fandom does.

As I've trundled along the ground through a number of sites etc., i tend to agree.

I do personally believe it's the draw and mystique of the more mythologically presented earlier ages over the more concrete 'historical period' of the 3rd age. The elder days leave more room for artistic creativity to soar.

To make a comparison, I would guess there are more people interested in the wars of our own ancient past, than there are in WWII, the Vietnam conflict, or even more recent ones.

Why? Because of 'familiarity' and 'documentation'.

Similarly, Tolkien has pretty tightly 'documented' the scenes and events of the Third Age... or at least, the latter part of it. His presentation of the mythology of the earlier days is with a much broader brush, and the usual exaggerations, enhancements and embellishments coming with time and the 'verbal passing along' of the tales.

 

[Server Room Gremlin]

I might add a little something, though it's been alluded to.
Tolkien had an incredible way of 'picturing' with words.

For LoTR, he "pictured" what he intended to be 'historical fantasy'... more 'concrete' in a way, more solid, more 'touchable' as it were. It simply does not have quite the same feeling of 'mystique,' or whatever term one might want to apply.

SIL, however, he INTENTIONALLY wrote to be more "mythological fantasy" - broader in scope, outsized in many ways, open to more interpretation, exploration, embellishment in terms of sizes, beauties, enchantments, events, creatures, etc.

Many artists, being artists, are naturally drawn to 'artistic' expression...including via 'words'. They could well be 'pulled' by the added mythology, distance of time, etc. presented in SIL, but absent from LoTR.

In addition, we can see the whole FOCUS of the two books being different. SIL is much more focused on people and their involvement with events. LoTR is much more focused on events, and people's involvements in them. (thus, LoTR 'feeling' more concrete.)

I agree that it's because the Lord of the Rings is more concrete. You could easily follow the descriptions in the book to draw the events happening. Even if you have your own idea of what the characters look like, it's essentially all there for you. Some artists might feel a bit bored by this.

It's the difference between creating a still life drawing of objects right in front of you, and drawing something you've imagined yourself (though it may be vaguely based on things you've seen/experienced). There's way more room for creativity, which provides the extra motivation needed to create a bunch of different artwork. The excitement of seeing and making something new and unusual.